Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the Senate Banking Committee he \u201cwould not be surprised\u201d if China was building digital assets potentially backed by gold rather than the yuan, given China\u2019s large sandbox in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n
Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) asked Bessent directly whether China is using digital assets and blockchain to build an alternative to American financial dominance.<\/p>\n
Bessent responded, saying, “We don’t know that for sure. There are lots of rumors that China may be developing digital assets backed by something other than the RMB, perhaps gold-based. We haven’t seen that.”<\/p>\n
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He added a caveat: \u201cBut they have a very large sandbox in Hong Kong. And HKMA is actively traveling the world looking at different mechanisms. So I would not be surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority serves as China\u2019s testing ground for financial innovations without directly implicating mainland authorities.<\/p>\n
By operating through Hong Kong, China can experiment with digital asset structures while maintaining plausible deniability.<\/p>\n
A gold-backed digital asset would compete directly with the dollar\u2019s reserve currency status by offering a stable store of value not subject to U.S. monetary policy or sanctions.<\/p>\n
See Also:\u00a0Earn While You Scroll: The Deloitte-Ranked #1 Software Company Growing 32,481% Is Opening Its $0.50\/Share Round to Accredited Investors.<\/a><\/p>\n This differs from China\u2019s existing digital yuan, which remains tied to the RMB.<\/p>\n Bessent\u2019s comments come as gold recently hit record highs above $5,600 per ounce before a sharp correction, and as crypto markets struggle with regulatory uncertainty in the U.S.<\/p>\n Bessent addressed other topics beyond Chinese digital assets, saying Iranian leaders are moving money out \u201clike crazy\u201d\u2014a sign that \u201cthe end may be near\u201d for the current regime. 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Click now to get top trade ideas daily<\/a>, plus unlimited access to cutting-edge tools and strategies to gain an edge in the markets.<\/p>\n Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga:<\/p>\n This article Scott Bessent ‘Would Not Be Surprised’ If China Was Building Digital Assets Backed By Gold<\/a> originally appeared on Benzinga.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the Senate Banking Committee he \u201cwould not be surprised\u201d if China was building…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,114,137894,39749,37927,113,137895,23265,240,61,60,9115,7914,95576],"class_list":{"0":"post-287263","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-cynthia-lummis","11":"tag-digital-assets","12":"tag-digital-yuan","13":"tag-economy","14":"tag-financial-innovations","15":"tag-hkma","16":"tag-hong-kong","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-real-estate","20":"tag-scott-bessent","21":"tag-senate-banking-committee"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}